A One-Year-Old Boy And Three-Month-Old Girl Among 17 Who Have Died In The Mumbai Building Collapse

The search and rescue operations are still underway.

MUMBAI -- A Shiv Sena worker was on Wednesday arrested in connection with the building collapse in suburban Ghatkopar which left 17 people dead.

According to residents of the Siddhi-Sai Cooperative Housing Society, the pillars of the building got weakened due to renovation work of a nursing home on the ground floor owned by Shiv Sena worker Sunil Shitap, leading to the collapse on Tuesday.

Shitap has been booked under IPC sections 304 (II) (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 336 (act endangering life or personal safety of others) and 338 (causing grievous hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others).

Shitap, who was detained last night, was arrested after questioning, a senior police official said.

The death toll in the Ghatkopar building collapse on Wednesday rose to 17 after five more bodies were pulled out from the rubble of the four-storey building during overnight search and rescue operations, a civic official said.

"Our rescue team along with the fire brigade and NDRF jawans extricated 28 people from the debris out which 17 people have been declared dead while 11 injured have been admitted in the nearby Shantiniketan, and the Rajawadi hospitals," an official of the disaster management unit of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said.

"Krishiv (one-year-old) was with his grandparents, Pandurang and Manorama Dongre, when the building came crashing down," Indian Express quoted a relative saying.

During the overnight operations two firemen were injured and shifted to a hospital, the official said.

The search and rescue operations are still underway.

According to residents of the ill-fated Siddhi-Sai Cooperative Housing Society, the pillars of the building got weakened due to the ongoing renovation of a nursing home located on its ground floor, reportedly owned by a local Shiv Sena leader, leading to the collapse on Tuesday morning.

The city and its suburbs received heavy rains over the last several days, though there has been some respite since yesterday with downpour giving way to intermittent showers.

Till 9 pm yesterday, 23 people were pulled out, of whom 12 were declared dead while 11 injured were admitted to hospitals.

The BMC made temporary accommodation arrangements for the affected people and the survivors in three nearby municipal schools, however, survivors preferred to stay at their relatives' homes.

Meanwhile, BJP MP Kirit Somaiya, who visited the crashed site yesterday after flying from Delhi, told PTI he will ensure that the affected and aggrieved people get proper relief and rehabilitation as soon as possible.